Tonight I attended Winter SOAR, and it was sooo cold! It began raining when I left home and was snowing at the beginning of the tour. It was VERY VERY cold.

That being said, Diamondback does look pretty awesome. After the COLD tour in the COLD, we entered the International Street Restaurant for pizza, breadsticks, salad, brownies, and soda. The spread was nice, but would've benefitted from HOT chocolate. HOT tea, or HOT coffee....even HOT water.

There were some interesting speakers, such as Mike Graham who showed videos including of a coaster design in Shanghai China, Bill Balfour, a lady from Great Wolf Lodge, a gentleman from Cedar Point, and best of all, Don Helbig. Don discussed the new changes for Kings Island in 2009. Many of the guests won free prizes.

It was a nice night, except for the cold.

Best regards,

Italian Chef

^^Quick question, how would a chap from Miami, like myself, fared in such an environment like you experienced for Soar??

The guy from Cedar Point is Tony Clark. The reason I know this (I didn't attend the SOAR event) is because if you look at On Point at the Cedar Point website, it says that Tony was going to KI for the SOAR event. Just a little tidbit I thought I'd share. I'm not sure but it seems like you thought it was cold maybe?

^^Quick question, how would a chap from Miami, like myself, fared in such an environment like you experienced for Soar??

I can't speak for the SOAR event, but on the KIC tour, it was freezing, windy, raining and snowing. Good football weather, but not so much for the looking at of coasters.

funny thing, channel 19 news had a short story talking about how ace had the first public tour of Diamondback, when we were there hours before them.

^^As has been documented MANY times, the news is pretty bad when it comes to the facts!!

One example, when WLWT reported on the KI job fair last weekend, they show a picture of SOB (as a background graphic) with the loop!!

Tonight I attended Winter SOAR, and it was sooo cold! It began raining when I left home and was snowing at the beginning of the tour. It was VERY VERY cold.

That being said, Diamondback does look pretty awesome. After the COLD tour in the COLD, we entered the International Street Restaurant for pizza, breadsticks, salad, brownies, and soda. The spread was nice, but would've benefitted from HOT chocolate. HOT tea, or HOT coffee....even HOT water.

There were some interesting speakers, such as Mike Graham who showed videos including of a coaster design in Shanghai China, Bill Balfour, a lady from Great Wolf Lodge, a gentleman from Cedar Point, and best of all, Don Helbig. Don discussed the new changes for Kings Island in 2009. Many of the guests won free prizes.

It was a nice night, except for the cold.

Best regards,

Italian Chef

Whats the new changes for 2009 other then new shows and DB ?

^^and one of channel 19's commericals for their weather shows Son of Beast with the loop.

Yep. I actually saw that commercial the other week on 19. It talks about not "getting thrown for a loop" with the weather forecast.

^^As has been documented MANY times, the news is pretty bad when it comes to the facts!!

One example, when WLWT reported on the KI job fair last weekend, they show a picture of SOB (as a background graphic) with the loop!!

They always use that as their background graphic when they talk about KI.

It gets under my skin, and makes me miss the loop even more.

^^Quick question, how would a chap from Miami, like myself, fared in such an environment like you experienced for Soar??

Having gone to Florida for 2 weeks in the middle of summer every year for the past 4 years, I consider myself a semi-tourist now and can honestly say that you would have not done well at all. Cincinnati has one of the wierdest climates out there, we can be in the 70s in early February and have a foot of snow in Early April. It is funky up here.

Hmmmm....

It's a good thing you guys weren't at the new year's event at Beech Bend. Riding the Kentucky Rumbler in even colder temperatures was still fun for me. The tour wasn't that big a deal was it? I wasn't at the KI Central tour - thanks, Beast Rider, for having to work - but I was at the ACE tour. If you were dressed for it, what's the problem? It's winter, you know. Prepare!

Okay, so I'm just messing with you.

I really felt sorry for Don, who had dress pants and a sweatshirt on. Brrrr! It shows that he cares about us all very much to have two tours in one day in weather that was less than desirable. Thanks again!

There were some interesting speakers, such as Mike Graham who showed videos including of a coaster design in Shanghai China, Bill Balfour, a lady from Great Wolf Lodge, a gentleman from Cedar Point, and best of all, Don Helbig. Don discussed the new changes for Kings Island in 2009. Many of the guests won free prizes.

Although Bill Balfour does work at EnterTrainment Junction, it was actually Bill Mefford who spoke at the SOAR event about EJ, not Bill Balfour.

There were some interesting speakers, such as Mike Graham who showed videos including of a coaster design in Shanghai China, Bill Balfour, a lady from Great Wolf Lodge, a gentleman from Cedar Point, and best of all, Don Helbig. Don discussed the new changes for Kings Island in 2009. Many of the guests won free prizes.

Although Bill Balfour does work at EnterTrainment Junction, it was actually Bill Mefford who spoke at the SOAR event about EJ, not Bill Balfour.

You are correct. Bill Balfour is currently the GM of EnterTRAINment Junction, he is the former head of entertainment for Paramount Parks. Bill Mefford (who spoke at the event) is independently contracted to be the PR guy for EJ. He used to work in the marketing department at KI amongst other parks.

You are correct. Bill Balfour is currently the GM of EnterTRAINment Junction, he is the former head of entertainment for Paramount Parks. Bill Mefford (who spoke at the event) is independently contracted to be the PR guy for EJ. He used to work in the marketing department at KI amongst other parks.

Sorry to correct you, but Bill Balfour was not the head of Entertainment for all Paramount Parks (unless this happened after 2004, when the company and I parted ways). He was the Manager of Entertainment for KI during the Paramount years, and I'm 98% certain he never moved to Charlotte to work at the Corporate office... but then again there were a few (very few) corporate people who were based at KI. There are others here that were there during Bill's final years at KI that would know better than I.